Dan Laster

Professor Laster, who joined the law school faculty in 2003, specializes in various intellectual property law courses.

Professor Laster previously was Associate General Counsel for Microsoft Corporation responsible for the trademark, copyright, trade secret and standards practices. During his career with Microsoft he was responsible for the team registering the Windows trademark and also helped the company formulate its positions on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Copyright Treaty.

His expertise in intellectual property issues including traditional trademark, copyright, and trade secret issues, extends to computer software, open source software, database, and internet related issues. He is the author of the Copyright, Trademark and Database Issues, Intellectual Property for the Internet (Lee and Davidson ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,1997).

Professor Laster was also in private practice as an associate specializing in intellectual property and litigation at Monroe Stokes Lawrence and Eitelbach (1991-92) and Perkins Coie (1983-86; 89-90). He was a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, from 1986-89, teaching courses in intellectual property, commercial law and law and economics.